


Harvest

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, did I mention that Klinger gets a cat?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26750956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: A Happy Halloween at the Winchester household.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Harvest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MajorWinchesterFan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorWinchesterFan/gifts).



Nothing was ever simple with Maxwell (and Charles secretly delighted in the way he brought play into a friendship that had survived sniper fire to be taken up unharmed in the States). As Halloween approached, they couldn’t just  _ buy _ a pumpkin from one of the farms outside of town. They couldn’t stop at a roadside stand or carry one out of a grocery store. At this point, the former Major might even have welcomed the idea of liberating a Halloween decoration from a suburban porch. But that was too simple. No adventure. No All Hallows spirit.

So there they were with dirt on their jeans (Maxwell adored Charles in a sweater and jeans… well, mostly, Maxwell just  _ adored _ Charles), crawling through vines covered with prickling fur on a search for a great pumpkin. Not  _ the _ Great Pumpkin, thankfully, though Max felt every bit as silly as Lucy in the pumpkin patch. He was there among the last green smell of the year for the same reason, too, even without the cartoon hearts forming around his head to announce it. 

Into the game, now, Charles froze and threw an arm around him. He was heavier than his sidekick and his body bore him down, warm in the cold October wind. The cider-press and cemetery-tree and fallen-leaf cinnamon smell of pure autumn was in the Corporal’s nose and he laughed because he knew that Charles was fighting not to do so.

“You really think someone is keeping an eye on this place, Major? Guarding pumpkins?!” It was only a little more absurd than the idea of his slender, silk-draped form as a guard for their unit, he supposed. 

“You were the one to insist on ‘creative acquisition,’ Maxwell. I insist on seeing you safe.” 

Max was honestly surprised they were out in 54 degree weather at all; Charles worried about his lungs a good bit. (Klinger let him tie his scarves tighter for him; he enjoyed the attention). 

Charles shifted then to a secret agent voice, teasing as he gave the younger man his mission. “There is our pumpkin. You are not only far lovelier than me, my dear girl, but far fleeter. You retrieve our Halloween globe and I will cover you.”

The Major gathered small gourds around himself like grenades.  _ No one will believe me _ , thought Max,  _ if I tell them just how fun you can be. How you could say no, but you let me talk you into the most impossible things.  _ “I’m fast from trying to run away all the time,” he joked. “In heels!” 

Charles shook his head at that, expression fond, but motioned him back. “Here. For luck.”

That long-desired mouth was hot on his and Max stayed with the kiss until Charles broke it. Wide-eyed and tingling, he crawled off under moonlight. 

***

It was hard to run with the round, orange weight of a pumpkin under one arm. (It was even harder with an erection, not that it was the first he’d ever experienced in Charles’ company). He hoped that by the time they reached the bright lights of his best friend’s kitchen that everything would have… calmed down. 

In the kitchen - all shining copper and black marble or granite or something equally fancy that Klinger would never get used to - the Major looked to the Corporal. 

“I have never done, ah, surgery on a gourd,” he admitted. 

Klinger gawked with crow-dark and crow-curious eyes. “ _ Never _ !? Geez, Major, you were neglected! Did you at least color baby pumpkins in school? Eat a popcorn ball?”

“What, pray tell, is a baby pumpkin?” 

Klinger brought a hand to his head in a gesture of despair. “I’ll get you some. You’re lucky we became friends, you know.” 

“I do. What do we need then, doctor?”

Klinger made a disappointed face. “Don’t say that in front of him, sir. We’re not gonna  _ save _ him.” He dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. “We’re gonna kill him.” 

Under Klinger’s charge, Charles gathered newspapers and knives, a candle and matches. Klinger brandished a carving knife like something out of a silly horror flick. He assigned the Major to one eye and half of the mouth. Even without watching what the other man was doing, Max knew the sides would match. They were just like that, he and the Major - had been from the start. 

But Charles had never kissed him bef ore. 

Thinking of that pretty mouth with its thin but not ungenerous lips, so warm in the late autumn air, Max slipped and nicked the skin between his thumb and forefinger. He hissed as a bead of blood formed there… then made a completely different sound when Charles drew that hand up to his mouth. 

Soul mates, Max had called them once. Blood brothers. 

“Nothing rhymes with orange,” Charles said then, out of nowhere.

“Huh?” The Corporal was a little loopy, having seen Charles draw an (albeit tiny) part of him into himself. And swallow. 

“Nothing rhymes with orange,” he repeated, tapping the pumpkin so that its orange rind resounded with a hollow thud. “But we, my dear, are not at all like that.”

Max smiled. “Like orange?”

“Unrhymed. Un-coupleted. Uncoupled. Alone. You and I, we are all tangled up.” His blue eyes prompted the man before him, his best friend, pushing him off some inner cliff… and he lacked his fuzzy slippers this time, to say nothing of the hang glider. 

Max was scared to reach the edge, but he sensed that the way down was going to be a lot like flying. “Why did you kiss me, Major?” 

“Why did you permit my kiss?” He smiled, waited a beat, said his name. 

“It looked like fun.” 

The answer shocked Charles; his face went pale. “It is appropriate that our lips should touch this night, Maxwell. Kissing you is the most terrifying thing that I have ever done.” 

“You think  _ I’m _ scary?” It wasn’t exactly flattery. 

Charles shook his head, fair, thin hair shimmering around his face like light. “Not you, Maxwell. You… you are my favorite music. You play in my mind even when you are absent.” 

To another listener, such words might be trite, but Max had witnessed Charles rejoice in music, lose it in tragedy, and fight to fall in love with again (at Max’s urging; Charles had taken him to a symphony). It defined the Major.  _ And somehow, he’s found me there.  _ Max wished he had known Charles was  _ looking _ . 

But Charles was still wearing a cider-apple blush on his cheekbones. Maybe he thought he needed more, needed to win Max over. The Corporal knew it would be just like him. Charles always wanted to make him into something fragile (maybe it was the ribbons?); Max always let him. No one else had ever cared enough to want to protect him. How could he possibly turn him down? 

And the way Charles had been looking at him tonight - stealing glances over the round, orange pumpkin horizon and raking those eyes of his from his toes clear up… then turning away at the last minute before their eyes could touch… it was a rush. 

“So why was it scary?” He knew Charles would hear the rest:  _ Why now, Charles?  _

Klinger watched the proud doctor rest his hands on the table, as though looking for support.  _ Am I a gamble for you _ ? He’d heard that the world went topsy-turvy on Halloween night – but the whole universe would have to be set on spin cycle to make Charles Emerson Winchester III think that Maxwell Q. Klinger, son of immigrants, frequent wearer of dresses, was a  _ risk _ . 

“I could not know,” Charles said at last. “Sometimes, over there, I felt quite certain that you felt it, too. But I could not  _ know _ .” He blew out a breath and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief and Maxwell decided that a nervous Major was fucking adorable. 

He reached for his hand and squeezed, dropping it before either of them could panic. “You could’ve asked me, Harvard. You know every word there is, right?”

Charles laughed at that, eyes lowered, cheeks still bashful pink. “And how might such a conversation have gone, sweetling?” The endearment surprised Max; he didn’t think that Charles even realized he’d said it. “Darling, might I take you out sometime?” He laughed again, but it was frightened. “Marry me? Spend your life at my side, though I am not worthy of you?” 

“I was planning on spending my life as your best friend anyway,” Maxwell gently reminded him. 

Charles moved the pumpkin carving knife aside, as if there was a violence in his body that frightened him. “You will stay? Tonight?” He wanted to ask for every night left to them, but felt he should prove himself first. 

Max had probably spent more nights with Charles than he had anywhere else. Once soothed by the city noise of Toledo, Klinger now delighted in the music of the tides. 

_ He’s asking me to sleep here. To sleep  _ **_with him_ ** _. To let his hands move over my body until I shake and spill. Maybe even to enter me… to ask me to come into him…  _

Charles had come closer, smiling. “There are fireworks, Maxwell, going off in those flawless eyes of yours. What, may I inquire, are you thinking?” 

Klinger shoved at him gently; the warm, sudden feel of skin on skin making him sway. “You  _ know _ .” 

“I believe that I am getting an idea.” His eyes flicked from the pumpkin mess to Max. “I would regret leaving Jack here a cyclops, however…” 

“You’re ready for the treat part of the night?” 

“Please?” Then his blush deepened. “Unless you feel that I am being ungentlemanly? I have not courted you properly, you know.” 

Klinger couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. Charles just stared, openmouthed, until he harnessed his amusement. “Major, I’ll be your guy  _ and  _ your girl, but you don’t have to talk me into wanting you.” 

“Well, perhaps  _ you _ should take  _ me _ out,” Charles huffed at him, teasing. 

“Can’t afford you, Major baby. Not unless I can talk you into something a whole lot less fancy than you deserve.” 

Charles liked this new nickname. “Corporal darling, I suspect you can talk me into most anything.”

“Can I talk you into going out tomorrow and staying in tonight? There are ghosts out there. Besides, you’ve had me hard since you kissed me.”

It was pleasing news to the Major; he grabbed Maxwell’s hands and led him up the stairs. On the landing, he stopped to kiss him again, deep, slow, and Max grinned all the way to his bedroom door. 

Max thought about being scared for a minute once the door closed behind them, but those eyes - periwinkle on ice? - were glowing; they pulled him out of fear and closer until he was in the Major’s arms. He had imagined being held by the man before, but the reality was so much better. He thought about praising those arms, the strength in them, the way they seemed to know just how to hold him close, how very much he needed held. 

For his part, Charles had never had so eager a lover, had never had anyone want to be so very close. He had included marriage as part of his imagined ask; it didn’t feel at all out of the realm of possibility when Max grabbed at his hips and said, “Pick me up!” 

This was apparently the type of physical encouragement Charles needed; he easily hefted the pretty, young Corporal and looked positively delighted when Klinger made it easy for him by wrapping him in his legs. “Darling, will you think me entirely too forward if I ask if you are wearing pretty, patterned stockings beneath your jeans?” 

“You know I like to feel pretty. And warm. You want to see ‘em?” 

Charles made a sweet, aching sound that was, at its heart, pure admiration. “You may model any and all things for me, outerwear and under things, whenever you wish… provided you will let me take all of it off.” 

Klinger closed his eyes in delight. “You  _ really _ shoulda told me over there, Major baby. I had a lotta nice stuff made that nobody ever saw.”

“I feared what the army might do if rumors arose. We did serve with a few by the book types. However, I will repay you for my cowardice. Model for me as you unpack.” 

“You sure you should ask me to move in before you even know if… you know?”

“But I  _ do  _ know. Maxwell, I knew the first time I saw you. Can you not feel how you were made just for me?” 

Klinger couldn’t feel anything else; everything he’d ever been or known was being sweetly overwhelmed, overwritten, overcome. “Don’t let go, okay?” 

“Winchesters do not repeat their mistakes, my dear. That I shall invent new and spectacular ones I do not doubt, but I will never let you go.” 

***

The final night of October burned out with the candles in Jack-o-lanterns stationed, leering, on porch steps. The great, orange moon went waxen and pale, and Max couldn’t stop making delighted sounds as he replayed their joining, nuzzling into his lover’s side. 

“Now I know why none of you doctors ever had trouble finding a date,” he teased. 

Charles groaned at him, but his eyes were laughing. “Nothing we did came from a textbook, darling. You, ah, inspire me, it seems.”

“I noticed.”

“Would you accept one more gift of me, Maxwell?”

Klinger  _ loved  _ presents, but he couldn’t imagine what could be left. “I didn’t get you anything but a pumpkin,” he reminded the other man. But he let Charles lead him, anyway, to another room. A room filled with

“Kittens!?” 

Half-dressed, Klinger immediately knelt in their fuzzy, mewing midst and began to kiss them. 

“I knew you wanted one. The shelter said that black cats are often brutalized during this season.”

He did not add: as you were once mistreated by those who passed through our camp - for being small and cute and easy to wound. 

Klinger looked up at him with gentle admiring awe. “So you got them  _ all _ ?” 

“Leverage. I want  _ you _ , kitten. If it takes kittens to keep you…” he shrugged. “It is a tradition, you know. Giving a new bride a kitten.” 

_ Aww. Didja skip the proposal because you were afraid I’d say no?  _ “It’s going to be a full house.”

Charles heard what he meant and joined him. “Do you wish to know their names?” 

“Of course.” 

“This is Hawkeye, Jr. This is Frank Burns Eats Worms. This little girl is Major Houlihan II.”

“The gang helped you name ‘em,” Klinger guessed. He was already planning their tiny costumes. 

“Yes. They were very, ah, encouraging.”

“We’ll call and tell them tomorrow,” Max promised. 

The feline shadows frolicking over his toes would never know a day of cruelty or fear. Held in Charles’ arms, neither would Max. 

End! 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> There are some time inconsistencies here (per the release of the Great Pumpkin lol) but the show is full of them, so let's say it's in the spirit of MASH. ;)


End file.
